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by Dan Sunday
Computing the area of a planar polygon is a basic geometry calculation and can be found in many introductory texts. However, there are several different methods for computing planar areas depending on the information available.
Before Pythagoras, the area of the parallelogram (including the rectangle and the square) had been known to equal the product of its base times its height. Further, two copies of the same triangle paste together to form a parallelogram, and thus the area of a triangle is half of its base b times its height h. So, for these simple but commonly occurring cases, we have:
However, except in special situations, finding the height of a triangle at an arbitrary orientation usually requires also computing the perpendicular distance of the top vertex from the base.
For example, if one knows the lengths of two sides, a and b, of a triangle and also the angle between them, then this is enough to determine the triangle and its area. Using trigonometry, the height of the triangle over the base b is given by , and thus the area is:
Another frequently used computation is derived from the fact that triangles with equal sides are congruent, and thus have the same area. This observation from Euclid (~300 BC) culminated in Heron's formula (~50 AD) for area as a function of the lengths of its three sides [Note: some historians attribute this result to Archimedes (~250 BC)]; namely:
where a,b,c are the lengths of the sides, and s is the semiperimeter. There are interesting algebraic variations of this formula; such as:
which efficiently avoids calculating the 3 square roots to explicitly get the lengths a,b,c from the triangle's vertex coordinates. Other variations on Heron's formula can be found at Eric Weisstein's Triangle page.
The remaining classical triangle congruence is when two angles and one side are known. Knowing two angles gives all three, so we can assume the angles and are both adjacent to the known base b. Then the formula for area is:
More recently, starting in the 17-th century with Descartes and Fermat, linear algebra produced new simple formulas for area. In 3 dimensional space (3D), the area of a planar parallelogram or triangle can be expressed by the magnitude of the cross-product of two edge vectors, since where is the angle between the two vectors v and w. Thus for a 3D triangle with vertices putting and , one gets:
A 2D vector (x, y) can be viewed as embedded in 3D by adding a third z component set = 0. This lets one take the cross-product of 2D vectors, and use it to compute area. Given a triangle with vertices for i = 0,1,2, we can compute that:
And the absolute value of the third z-component is twice the absolute area of the triangle. However, it is useful to not take the absolute value here, and instead let the area be a signed quantity.
This formula for area is a very efficient computation with no roots and no trigonometric functions involved - just 2 multiplications and 5 additions, and possibly 1 division by 2 (which can sometimes be avoided).
Note that the signed area will be positive if the vertices V0V1V2 are oriented counterclockwise around the triangle, and will be negative if the triangle is oriented clockwise; and so, this area computation can be used to test for a triangle's orientation. This signed area can also be used to test whether the point V2 is to the left (positive) or the right (negative) of the directed line segment V0V1 . So this value is a very useful primitive, and it's great to have such an efficient formula for it.
The Greeks singled out certain quadrilaterals (also called quadrangles) for special treatment, including the square, the rectangle, the parallelogram, and the trapezium. Then, given an arbitrary quadrilateral, they showed how to construct a parallelogram [Euclid, Book I, Prop 45] or square [Euclid, Book II, Prop 14] with an equal area. And the area of the parallelogram was equal to its base times its height. But there was no general formula for the quadrilateral's area.
An extension of Heron's triangle area formula to quadrilaterals was discovered by the Hindu geometer Brahmagupta (620 AD) [Coxeter,1967, Section 3.2]. However, it only works for cyclic quadrilaterals where all four vertices lie on the same circle. For a cyclic quadrilateral , let the lengths of the four sides be a, b, c, d, and the semiperimeter be s = (a+b+c+d)/2. Then, the area of is given by:
which is an amazing symmetric formula. If one side is zero length, say d = 0, then we have a triangle (which is always cyclic) and this formula reduces to Heron's one.
In modern linear algebra, as already noted, the area of a planar parallelogram is the magnitude of the cross product of two adjacent edge vectors. So, for any 3D planar parallelogram , we have:
In 2D, with vertices for , this becomes:
which is again a signed area, just as we had for triangles. It also indicates orientation.
Next, for an arbitrary quadrilateral, one can compute its area using a parallelogram discovered by Pierre Varignon (first published in 1731). It is amazing that the Greeks missed Varignon's simple result which was discovered 2000 years after Euclid! Given any quadrilateral, one can take the midpoints of its 4 edges to get 4 vertices which form a new quadrilateral. It is then easy to show that this midpoint quadrilateral is always a parallelogram, called the "Varignon parallelogram", and that its area is exactly one-half the area of the original quadrilateral [Coxeter,1967, Section 3.1]. To see this, for any quadrilateral , let the midpoint vertices be as shown in the diagram:
From elementary geometry, we know that in triangle V0V1V2 the midpoint line M0M1 is parallel to the base V0V2. In triangle V0V2V3, the line M2M3 is parallel to that same base V0V2. Thus, M0M1 and M2M3 are parallel to each other. Similarly, M0M3 and M1M2 are parallel, which shows that is a parallelogram. The area relation is also easy to demonstrate. And we can then compute the area as:
which is one-half the magnitude of the cross-product of the two diagonals of the quadrilateral. This result was noted by [Van Gelder,1995] who used a different proof. This formula holds for any 3D planar quadrilateral. When restricted to 2D with , this becomes a formula for any quadrilateral's signed area:
This formula for an arbitrary quadrilateral is just as efficient as the one for an arbitrary triangle, using only 2 multiplications and 5 additions. For simple quadrilaterals, the area is positive when the vertices are oriented counterclockwise, and negative when they are clockwise. However, it also works for nonsimple quadrilaterals and is equal to the difference in area of the two regions the quadrilateral bounds. For example, in the following diagram where I is the self-intersection point of a nonsimple quadrilateral , we have:
A 2D polygon can be decomposed into triangles. For computing area, there is a very easy decomposition method for simple polygons (i.e. ones without self intersections). Let a polygon be defined by its vertices for with . Also, let P be any point; and for each edge of , form the triangle . Then, the area of is equal to the sum of the signed areas of all the triangles for ; and we have:
Notice that, for a counterclockwise oriented polygon, when the point P is on the "inside" left side of an edge , then the area of is positive; whereas, when P is on the "outside" right side of an edge , then has a negative area. If instead the polygon is oriented clockwise, then the signs are reversed, and inside triangles become negative.
For example, in the above diagram, the triangles and have positive area, and contribute positively to the total area of polygon . However, as one can see, only part of and are actually inside and there is a part of each triangle that is also exterior. On the other hand, the triangles and have negative area, and this cancels out the exterior excesses of positive area triangles. In the final analysis, the exterior areas all get canceled, and one is left with exactly the area of the polygon .
One can make the formula more explicit by picking a specific point P and expanding the terms. By selecting , the area formula of each triangle reduces to . This yields:
A little algebra shows that the more efficient second and third summations are equal to the first [Sunday, 2002]. For a polygon with n vertices, the first summation uses 2n multiplications and (2n–1) additions; the second uses n multiplications and (3n–1) additions; and the third uses only n multiplications and (2n–1) additions. So, the third is preferred for efficiency. And, to avoid any overhead from computing the index i(mod n), one can either extend the polygon array up to , or simply put the final term outside of the summation loop. We give an efficient implementation below in the routine area2D_Polygon().
This computation gives a signed area for a polygon; and, similar to the signed area of a triangle, is positive when the vertices are oriented counterclockwise around the polygon, and negative when oriented clockwise. So, this computation can be used to test for a polygon's global orientation. However, there are other more efficient algorithms for determining polygon orientation. The easiest is to find the rightmost lowest vertex of the polygon, and then test the orientation of the entering and leaving edges at this vertex. This test can be made by checking if the end vertex of the leaving edge is to the left of the entering edge, which means that the orientation is counterclockwise, otherwise it is clockwise.
An important generalization is for planar polygons embedded in 3D space [Goldman, 1994]. We have already shown that the area of a 3D triangle is given by half the magnitude of the cross product of two edge vectors; namely, .
The Standard Formula
There is a classic standard formula for the area of a 3D polygon [Goldman, 1994] that extends the cross-product formula for a triangle. It can be derived from Stokes Theorem. However, we show here how to derive it from a 3D triangular decomposition that is geometrically more intuitive.
A general 3D planar polygon has vertices for with , where all the vertices lie on the same 3D plane P which has a unit normal vector n. Now, as in the 2D case, let P be any 3D point (not generally on the plane P ); and for each edge of , form the 3D triangle . We would like to relate the sum of the areas of all these triangles to the area of the polygon in the plane P . But what we have is a pyramidal cone with P as an apex over the polygon as a base. We are going to project the triangular sides of this cone onto the plane P of the base polygon, and compute signed areas of the projected triangles. Then the sum of the projected areas will equal the total area of the planar polygon.
To achieve this, start by associating to each triangle an area vector , which is perpendicular to , and whose magnitude we know is equal to that triangle's area. Next, drop a perpendicular from P to a point P0 on P , and consider the projected triangle . Then drop a perpendicular P0Bi from P0 to Bi on the edge . Since PP0 is also perpendicular to ei, the three points PP0Bi define a plane that is perpendicular to ei, and thus PBi is a perpendicular from P to ei. Thus |PBi| is the height of , and |P0Bi| is the height of Ti. Further, the angle between these two altitudes = = the angle between n and since a 90° rotation (in the PP0Bi plane) results in congruence. This gives:
This signed area computation is positive if the vertices of Ti are oriented counterclockwise when we look at the plane P from the side pointed to by n. As in the 2D case, we can now add together the signed areas of all the triangles Ti to get the area of the polygon . Writing this down, we have:
Finally, by selecting P = (0,0,0), we have PVi = Vi and this produces the concise formula:
which uses 6n+3 multiplications and 4n+2 additions
Similar to the 2D case, this is a signed area which is positive when the vertices are oriented counterclockwise around the polygon when viewed from the side of P pointed to by n.
Quadrilateral Decomposition
[Van Gelder, 1995] has shown how to significantly speed up this computation by using a decomposition into quadrilaterals instead of triangles. As we have already shown, the area of a 3D planar quadrilateral can be computed in terms of the cross-product of its diagonals; namely as: , which reduces four expensive cross-product computations to just one!
Then, any polygon (with n > 4 vertices) can be decomposed into quadrilaterals formed by V0 and three other sequential vertices V2i–1, V2i, and V2i+1 for i = 1,h where h = the greatest integer . When n is odd, the decomposition ends with a triangle. This gives:
where k = 0 for n odd, and k = n–1 for n even. This formula reduces the number of expensive cross-products by a factor of two (replacing them with vector subtractions). In total there are 3n+3 multiplications and 5n+1 additions making this formula roughly twice as fast as the classical one.
[Van Gelder, 1995] also states that this method can be applied to 2D polygons, but he does not write down the details. Working this out produces a formula that uses n multiplications and 3n–1 additions, which is not as fast as the prior 2D formula we have given that use only n multiplications and (2n–1) additions. We simply note this here, and do not pursue it further.
Projection to 2D
However, one can further significantly speed up the computation of 3D planar polygon area by projecting the polygon onto a 2D plane [Snyder & Barr, 1987]. Then, the area can be computed in 2D using our fastest formula, and the 3D area is recovered by using an area scaling factor. This method projects the 3D-embedded polygon onto an axis-aligned 2D subplane, by ignoring one of the three coordinates. Further, to get the correct area sign for the orientation of the projected polygons, the basis vectors of the 2D subplanes have to be ordered so that their orientation is compatible with the 3D basis vectors. (I'd like to thank Nathan Lay for pointing this out, which has resulted in a sign-correction in both the formula and the implemented code). In particular, if (x,y,z) are the 3D coordinates for the standard xyz basis, then the projections that ignore x, y, and z are onto the yz, zx, and xy subplanes respectively. That is, the projections are given by: Projx(x,y,z) = (y,z), Projy(x,y,z) = (z,x), and Projz(x,y,z) = (x,y). Then, these projections are "orientation-preserving", in that the sign of the projected polygon's area matches it's orientation in the projection subplane. And because of this, the scaling factor uses the sign of the component that is ignored.
Next, to select the projection that best avoids degeneracy and optimizes robustness, we look at the polygon's normal vector n, and choose the component with the greatest absolute value as the one to ignore. Let Projc() be the projection that ignores the selected coordinate c = x, y, or z. Then, the ratio of areas for the projected polygon Projc() and original polygon with normal is given by:
This corrects an error in the previously published formula that was noted by [Nathan Lay, 2013].
An interesting consequence of this formula, is that the "area vector" a of is now given by:
This area vector a is normal to the plane of the 3D polygon, and it's length is the area of the 3D polygon. So conversely, if the 3D polygon area A() is already known, and n is the unit normal vector for 's plane, then A()n is the area vector, whose components are thus the areas of 's projections. In effect, by computing the area of one polygon projection, one can quickly get the areas of the other projections.
As a result, the 3D planar area can be recovered by a single extra multiplication in addition to the 2D area computation, and in total this algorithm uses n+5 multiplications, 2n+1 additions, 1 square root (when n is not a unit normal), plus a small overhead choosing the coordinate to ignore. This is a very significant improvement over the classical 3D formula, achieving a 6 times speed-up!! We give an efficient implementation below in the routine area3D_Polygon().
Here are some sample "C++" implementations of these formulas as algorithms. We just give the 2D case with integer coordinates, and use the simplest structures for a point, a triangle, and a polygon which may differ in your application. We represent a polygon as an array of points, but it is often more convenient to have it as a linked list of vertices (to allow insertion or deletion during drawing operations), and the polygon routines can be easily modified to scan through the linked list (see [O'Rourke, 1998] for an example of this approach).
// Copyright 2000 softSurfer, 2012 Dan Sunday// This code may be freely used and modified for any purpose// providing that this copyright notice is included with it.// iSurfer.org makes no warranty for this code, and cannot be held// liable for any real or imagined damage resulting from its use.// Users of this code must verify correctness for their application.
// a Point (or vector) is defined by its coordinatestypedef struct {int x, y, z;} Point; // set z=0 for a 2D Point// a Triangle is given by three points: Point V0, V1, V2 // a Polygon is given by:// int n = number of vertex points// Point* V[] = an array of n+1 vertex points with V[n]=V[0]
// Note: for efficiency low-level short functions are declared to be inline.
// isLeft(): test if a point is Left|On|Right of an infinite 2D line.// Input: three points P0, P1, and P2// Return: >0 for P2 left of the line through P0 to P1// =0 for P2 on the line// <0 for P2 right of the lineinline intisLeft( Point P0, Point P1, Point P2 ){ return ( (P1.x - P0.x) * (P2.y - P0.y) - (P2.x - P0.x) * (P1.y - P0.y) );}//===================================================================
// orientation2D_Triangle(): test the orientation of a 2D triangle// Input: three vertex points V0, V1, V2// Return: >0 for counterclockwise // =0 for none (degenerate)// <0 for clockwiseinline intorientation2D_Triangle( Point V0, Point V1, Point V2 ){ return isLeft(V0, V1, V2);}//===================================================================
// area2D_Triangle(): compute the area of a 2D triangle// Input: three vertex points V0, V1, V2// Return: the (float) area of triangle Tinline floatarea2D_Triangle( Point V0, Point V1, Point V2 ){ return (float)isLeft(V0, V1, V2) / 2.0;}//===================================================================
// orientation2D_Polygon(): test the orientation of a simple 2D polygon// Input: int n = the number of vertices in the polygon// Point* V = an array of n+1 vertex points with V[n]=V[0]// Return: >0 for counterclockwise // =0 for none (degenerate)// <0 for clockwise// Note: this algorithm is faster than computing the signed area.intorientation2D_Polygon( int n, Point* V ){ // first find rightmost lowest vertex of the polygon int rmin = 0; int xmin = V[0].x; int ymin = V[0].y; for (int i=1; i<n; i++) { if (V[i].y > ymin) continue; if (V[i].y == ymin) { // just as low if (V[i].x < xmin) // and to left continue; } rmin = i; // a new rightmost lowest vertex xmin = V[i].x; ymin = V[i].y; } // test orientation at the rmin vertex // ccw <=> the edge leaving V[rmin] is left of the entering edge if (rmin == 0) return isLeft( V[n-1], V[0], V[1] ); else return isLeft( V[rmin-1], V[rmin], V[rmin+1] );} //===================================================================
// area2D_Polygon(): compute the area of a 2D polygon// Input: int n = the number of vertices in the polygon// Point* V = an array of n+1 vertex points with V[n]=V[0]// Return: the (float) area of the polygonfloatarea2D_Polygon( int n, Point* V ){ float area = 0; int i, j, k; // indices if (n < 3) return 0; // a degenerate polygon for (i=1, j=2, k=0; i<n; i++, j++, k++) { area += V[i].x * (V[j].y - V[k].y); } area += V[n].x * (V[1].y - V[n-1].y); // wrap-around term return area / 2.0;}//===================================================================
// area3D_Polygon(): compute the area of a 3D planar polygon// Input: int n = the number of vertices in the polygon// Point* V = an array of n+1 points in a 2D plane with V[n]=V[0]// Point N = a normal vector of the polygon's plane// Return: the (float) area of the polygonfloatarea3D_Polygon( int n, Point* V, Point N ){ float area = 0; float an, ax, ay, az; // abs value of normal and its coords int coord; // coord to ignore: 1=x, 2=y, 3=z int i, j, k; // loop indices if (n < 3) return 0; // a degenerate polygon // select largest abs coordinate to ignore for projection ax = (N.x>0 ? N.x : -N.x); // abs x-coord ay = (N.y>0 ? N.y : -N.y); // abs y-coord az = (N.z>0 ? N.z : -N.z); // abs z-coord coord = 3; // ignore z-coord if (ax > ay) { if (ax > az) coord = 1; // ignore x-coord } else if (ay > az) coord = 2; // ignore y-coord // compute area of the 2D projection switch (coord) { case 1: for (i=1, j=2, k=0; i<n; i++, j++, k++) area += (V[i].y * (V[j].z - V[k].z)); break; case 2: for (i=1, j=2, k=0; i<n; i++, j++, k++) area += (V[i].z * (V[j].x - V[k].x)); break; case 3: for (i=1, j=2, k=0; i<n; i++, j++, k++) area += (V[i].x * (V[j].y - V[k].y)); break; } switch (coord) { // wrap-around term case 1: area += (V[n].y * (V[1].z - V[n-1].z)); break; case 2: area += (V[n].z * (V[1].x - V[n-1].x)); break; case 3: area += (V[n].x * (V[1].y - V[n-1].y)); break; } // scale to get area before projection an = sqrt( ax*ax + ay*ay + az*az); // length of normal vector switch (coord) { case 1: area *= (an / (2 * N.x)); break; case 2: area *= (an / (2 * N.y)); break; case 3: area *= (an / (2 * N.z)); } return area;}//===================================================================
Donald Coxeter & Samuel Greitzer, Geometry Revisited (1967)
Ronald Goldman, "Area of Planar Polygons and Volume of Polyhedra" in Graphics Gems II (1994)
Nathan Lay, personal communication (2013).
Joseph O'Rourke, Computational Geometry in C (2nd Edition), Section 1.3 "Area of a Polygon" (1998)
J.P. Snyder and A.H. Barr, "Ray Tracing Complex Models Containing Surface Tessellations", ACM Comp Graphics 21, (1987)
Dan Sunday, "Fast Polygon Area and Newell Normal Computation", journal of graphics tools (jgt) Vol 7(2), (2002)
Allen Van Gelder, "Efficient Computation of Polygon Area and Polyhedron Volume" in Graphics Gems V (1995)
Eric Weisstein, MathWorld Site: Triangle or in The CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics (1998)
© Copyright 2012 Dan Sunday, 2001 softSurfer


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The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) holds a competitive examination named National Defence Academy & Naval Academy (NDA / NA) Examination for admission to the Army, Navy and Air Force wings of the NDA and for Indian Naval Academy Course (INAC).
UPSC NDA General Ability Test Syllabus
Part A – English
The question paper in English will be designed to test the candidate's understanding of English and workman like use of words. The syllabus covers various aspects like : Grammar and usage, vocabulary, comprehension and cohesion in extended text to test the candidate's proficiency in English.
Part B – General Knowledge
The question paper on General Knowledge broadly covers the subjects: Physics, Chemistry, General Science, Social Studies, Geography and Current Events.
The syllabus given below is designed to indicate the scope of these subjects included in this paper. The topics mentioned are not as exhaustive and questions on topics of similar nature not specifically mentioned in the syllabus may also be asked. Your answers are expected to show your knowledge and intelligent understanding of the subject.
Section A: Physics
Physical Properties and States of Matter, Mass, Weight, Volume, Density and Specific Gravity, Principle of Archimedes, Pressure Barometer.
Motion of objects, Velocity and Acceleration, Newton's Laws of Motion, Force and Momentum, Parallelogram of Forces, Stability and Equilibrium of bodies, Gravitation, elementary ideas of work, Power and Energy.
Effects of Heat, Measurement of temperature and heat, change of State and Latent Heat, Modes of transference of Heat. Sound waves and their properties, Simple musical instruments.
Rectilinear propagation of Light, Reflection and refraction. Spherical mirrors and Lenses. Human Eye.
Natural and Artificial Magnets, Properties of a Magnet, Earth as a Magnet.
Static and Current Electricity, conductors and Non-conductors, Ohm's Law, Simple Electrical Circuits, Heating, Lighting and Magnetic effects of Current, Measurement of Electrical Power, Primary and Secondary Cells, Use of X-Rays.
General Principles in the working of the following:
Simple Pendulum, Simple Pulleys, Siphon, Levers, Balloon, Pumps, Hydrometer, Pressure Cooker, Thermos Flask, Gramophone, Telegraphs, Telephone, Periscope, Telescope, Microscope, Mariner's Compass; Lightening Conductors, Safety Fuses.
Section B: Chemistry
Physical and Chemical changes. Elements, Mixtures and Compounds, Symbols, Formulae and simple Chemical Equations, Law of Chemical Combination ( excluding problems ). Properties of Air and Water.
Preparation and Properties of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbondioxide, Oxidation and Reduction.
Acids, bases and salts.
Carbon – different forms.
Fertilizers – Natural and Artificial
Material used in the preparation of substances like soap, Glass, Ink, Paper, Cement, Paints, Safety Matches, and Gun-Powder.
Elementary ideas about the Structure of Atom, Atomic, Equivalent and Molecular Weights, Valency.
Section C: General Science
Difference between the living and non-living.
Basis of Life – Cells, Protoplasms and Tissues.
Growth and Reproduction in Plants and Animals.
Elementary knowledge of human Body and its important organs.
Common Epidemics, their causes and prevention.
Food – Source of Energy for man. Constituents of food, Balanced Diet.
The Solar System – Meteors and Comets, Eclipses.
Achievements of Eminent Scientists.
Section D: History, Freedom Movement, etc.
A broad survey of Indian History, with emphasis on Culture and Civilisation.
Freedom Movement in India.
Elementary study of Indian Constitution and Administration.
Elementary knowledge of Five Year Plans of India.
Panchayati Raj, Co-operatives and Community Development.
Bhoodan, Sarvodaya, National Integration and Welfare State, Basic Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
Forces shaping the modern world; Renaissance, Exploration and Discovery; War of American Independence. French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and Russian Revolution. Impact of Science and Technology on Society. Concept of one World, United Nations, Panchsheel, Democracy. Socialism and Communism. Role of India in the present world.
Section E: Geography
The Earth, its shape and size. Lattitudes and Longitudes, Concept of time. International Date Line. Movements of Earth and their effects.
Origin of Earth. Rocks and their classification; Weathering – Mechanical and Chemical, Earthquakes and volcanoes.
Ocean Currents and Tides
Atmosphere and its composition; Temperature and Atmospheric Pressure, Planetary Winds, cyclones and Anti-cyclones; Humidity; Condensation and Precipitation; Types of Climate. Major Natural regions of the World.
Regional Geography of India – Climate, Natural vegetation. Mineral and Power resources; location and distribution of agricultural and industrial activities.
Important Sea ports and main sea, land and air routes of India. Main items of Imports and Exports of India.
Section F: Current Events
Knowledge of Important events that have happened in India in the recent years.
Current important world events.
Prominent personalities – both Indian and International including those connected with cultural activities and sports.
Out of maximum marks assigned to part 'B' of this paper, questions on Sections A, B, C, D, E and F will carry approximately 25%, 15%, 10%, 20%, 20% and 10% weightages respectively.
Intelligence and Personality Test
In addition to the interview, the candidates will be put to Intelligence Tests both verbal and non-verbal, designed to assess their basic intelligence. They will also be put to Group Tests such as group discussions, group planning, outdoor group tasks, and asked to give brief lectures on specified subjects.
All these tests are intended to judge the mental calibre of a candidate. In broad terms, this is really an assessment of not only his intellectual qualities but also his social traits and interests in current affairs.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Wind energy company cited for Groton violations
Credit: By DAN SEUFERT, Union Leader Correspondent | March 26, 2014 | www.newhampshire.com ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
GROTON – A state fire marshal section chief has notified the state's Site Evaluation Committee of 22 building and safety code violations at the 24-turbine Groton Wind facility.
The SEC issued a ruling in November warning wind energy company Iberdrola that the committee had received correspondence claiming that Iberdrola is "operating the facility … in violation of the terms and conditions of the certificate of site."
If found to be in violation of the certificate or decision, the company's operating certificate for the 48 megawatt plant may be suspended and/or revoked, Department of Environmental Services Commissioner Thomas Burack said in the order for hearings on the matter, a process which began earlier this month.
The SEC granted approval for the wind farm on May 6, 2011. But in subsequent inspections of the plant, Ronald D. Anstey, section chief and investigator with the state Fire Marshal's Office, found that Iberdrola had violated state law several times.
The company did not file fire code and safety code plans with the fire marshal, failed to provide fire suppression at the turbines as required, and had not obtained proper state approval for its design and construction of the plant.
The plant owners are "occupying and operating the structures on site without inspection or approval and without an occupancy permit," Anstey said in a letter to the SEC on Aug. 12.
Iberdrola officials said they filed the required permits with the Department of Environmental Services, as they claim was required in the permitting process, and claim they didn't violate the process guidelines that were given to them.
In a letter to the SEC on Friday that was made public on Tuesday, Anstey said that as he reviewed the wind farm's plans and site documentation on Jan. 24, he found 22 new violations.
Among them are a lack of smoke alarms throughout the facility; a flammable liquid storage cabinet inside the structure that is not externally vented as required by state law; and an exterior diesel fuel storage tank and pump that is not protected from vehicular damage.
Iberdrola officials say they are cooperating with the fire marshal.
"The fire marshal visited our Groton facility on Jan. 24 and provided us with a list of issues. We have been cooperating fully with the fire marshal, and the majority of his issues were taken care of very quickly. We are in the process of resolving all remaining issues and expect to complete our work in the near term."
Anstey agreed, partially. "Since the beginning of 2014, there have been periods of cooperation, and representations that actions are being taken by the applicant to come into compliance with the codes. However, compliance has yet to be achieved," Anstey wrote in his prehearing letter to the SEC on March 21.
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar "fair dealing" provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
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text:
Train wreck avoided: Plain errors may be corrected even when "plain" only on appeal
on Feb 25, 2013 at 11:36 am
When a criminal defendant's sentence is plainly unlawful in light of an intervening Supreme Court decision, is "plain error" correction prohibited under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) because the law was unsettled when the district court imposed sentence and the defendant failed to object? Happily, the Court answered "no" in last Wednesday's opinion in Henderson v. United States, so that prospect of plainly illegal sentences going uncorrected on direct appeal is avoided (or at least reduced). Still, the Court split six to three, and like most arcane legal rules, Rule 52(b) was subject to differing interpretations once placed under the Court's microscope. Of course, the Rule is always subject to amendment, so the majority's non-constitutional ruling can be altered if Congress disagrees.
The text of Rule 52(b) is short – much shorter than the series of opinions the Court has issued over two decades to determine its application to differing scenarios: "A plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the court's attention." As Justice Breyer's majority opinion notes, the rule embodies "two important [but] competing legal principles." One is that a right may be forfeited if not timely asserted – thus Rule 52(b) does not permit all unobjected-to errors to be corrected on appeal, so as to encourage contemporaneous objections. On the other hand, fairness (or "fundamental justice" as was said in United States v. Olano (1993)), sometimes dictates that an appellate court correct a significant error to which the defendant failed to object. Thus, as Justice Breyer noted both at oral argument and in his opinion, Chief Justice Marshall wrote long ago, in United States v. Schooner Peggy (1801), that "if subsequent to the judgment and before the decision of the appellate court, a law intervenes and positively changes the rule that governs, the law must be obeyed or its obligation denied." Amarcion Henderson's appeal presented the very situation seemingly identified in Schooner Peggy. Upon Henderson's conviction for being a felon in possession of a gun, the district court sentenced him to sixty months in prison, which was above the Guideline range. The judge's expressed reason for the longer sentence was to help Henderson – the judge believed that at least a sixty-month sentence was necessary to make Henderson eligible for a special drug treatment program in prison. Not only did Henderson not object, but his submissions appeared to seek this result.
At the time Henderson's judge acted, the law regarding his "help the defendant" reason for imposing a longer sentence was unclear in his circuit. Some other circuits had approved the rationale, while others had condemned it. But after Henderson filed his direct appeal, the Supreme Court granted cert. on the issue, and in 2011 decided (in Tapia v. United States) that a longer imprisonment sentence "to promote rehabilitation" is statutorily unlawful.
Thus by the time Henderson's appeal reached the Fifth Circuit, the sentencing error was plain – but it had not been "plain" when the district court had acted. The Fifth Circuit concluded that Rule 52(b) did not permit correction of the unobjected-to error here, ruling that a plain error must be "clear . . . at the time of trial."
Finding that the Rule's text and precedents do not answer "the temporal question," the majority concluded that consistency as well as fairness requires that an error that is plain by the time of appeal is at least eligible for correction. Whether it must be corrected will depend on the application of the final factor (of four) that the Court identified in Olano as governing: "whether the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Henderson's case is remanded for (presumably) that determination, and the majority notes that his failure to object when the law was unsettled "may well count against the grant of Rule 52(b) relief."
Nevertheless, the ruling that such errors are eligible for relief under Rule 52(b) is an important one. The most powerful point in favor of the majority's ruling – other than simple fairness — is consistency of precedent. In two prior cases, the Court has ruled that other errors may be corrected as "plain" despite the lack of a contemporaneous objection. First is the obvious case: when the error is perfectly clear at the time the district court rules, such that everyone – judge, prosecutor, and defense – should have caught it. Correction of such "plain errors" was approved in Olano, albeit under the rigorous four-step standard mentioned above. Second, in Johnson (1997), the Court addressed the opposite situation: where the district court rules correctly under law that is settled at the time, but then an intervening Supreme Court decision to the contrary makes the trial court's ruling clearly wrong by the time of appeal. Because requiring contemporaneous objections when the law is settled against the defense would be futile and inefficient, Johnson ruled that such unobjected-to issues may be corrected under Rule 52(b) when an intervening decision changes the law. (Thus Johnson also "forecloses" any textual argument based on the word "was" in the Rule.)
This would have left Henderson's situation the only one not correctible under Rule 52(b), when an intervening decision changes the law. A defendant could receive the benefit of the Rule, despite the lack of objection, when the district judge is "plainly correct at the time," and also when the judge is "plainly incorrect at the time" (emphasis in the original). "Why should [the rule] not also cover cases in the middle?" asked the Court. Seeing a negative result as "highly, and unfairly, anomalous" and finding "no practical [reason] for making this distinction," the Court concluded that Henderson's error, too, may be corrected under Rule 52(b).
This decision, once made, is a bit of a yawner. It is only the interpretation of a Rule, not the Constitution, and it addresses a relatively small number of cases. It also responds to the general sense of fairness that non-legal-technicians likely share – and Congress can amend it if it thinks it significant. The only amusement in Justice Breyer's typically exhaustive thirteen-page opinion is that he managed to write in an entertaining point he made repeatedly at oral argument: that it seems unrealistic to believe that any lawyer would consciously choose not to object when the law is unsettled, hoping that an intervening Supreme Court decision, like a bolt from the blue, will recuse him (or her) from error on appeal. "[L]ike the unicorn, he [such a lawyer] finds his home in the imagination, not the courtroom."
The Court also made clear that correcting plain errors on appeal has nothing to do with criticizing district judges: "plain-error review is not a grading system for trial judges," but rather an opportunity to "meet the demands of fairness and judicial integrity."
Given the relative insignificance of the decision, it is perhaps a bit surprising that Justice Scalia saw the need to write a ten-page dissent. He (joined by Justices Thomas and Alito) criticizes the majority for "misconceiving our task," which is "not the exalted philosophical one of deciding where justice lies." Justice Scalia finds the text of Rule 52(b) "entirely clear," because the purpose of Rule 52 (and also Rule 51) is to encourage objections that "should have been made." When the law is unsettled, so that there is no futility barrier to objecting as there was in Johnson, Rule 52(b) should be interpreted to require objection, or forfeit the error. A "time of appeal" rule, says the dissent, "promotes both . . . fairnesss and efficiency," because only a defendant who is "remiss" for not raising an objection when it might have done some good will be barred on appeal. Criticizing what the dissent sees as "a touching faith in the good sportsmanship of defense counsel" and its "Pollyannaish rejoinder" to the specter of reversed convictions and sentences where counsel has failed to assist the trial judge, Justice Scalia really pours on the stylistic heat.
My review of the Supreme Court's criminal cases from last Term shows that no two Justices appear to disagree more, on criminal law matters, than Justices Breyer and Scalia. Not just ideologically, but stylistically, they clearly seem to drive each other nuts. At oral argument Justice Scalia prefers short laser-like questions, while Justice Breyer tends to "think out loud" and at length. In opinions, Justice Breyer often invokes fairness and pragmatic policy concerns, while Justice Scalia professes merely to honor the "mundane and lawyerly task" of interpreting text. Their competing Henderson opinions provide a good example – twenty-three pages of ink spilled on a short Rule as applied to a narrow band of cases. The differences in the decisions here, I would suggest, goes a good bit deeper than the twenty words of this one-sentence Rule.


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From the Publisher:
Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
So, when I heard about the Shine On, a read-along of The Shining, I joined up, looking forward to tackling The Shining at last. I have yet to be wowed by King, even though I keep hoping. I liked The Stand well enough, but was disappointed I didn't like it more. Cell was entertaining, but ultimately my least favorite King book so far. I did like Misery though.
I can definitely see why so many people get white knuckles while reading The Shining. It was quite intense in parts, especially near the end as the book reached its climax. By then I was so invested in the characters, it was a race to the end to see what would happen. I have been fortunate not to have been spoiled as to the end (and I hadn't yet seen the movie).
© 2013, Wendy Runyon of Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.


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Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Guide
Welcome to the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow wiki guide.
When diplomacy and brute force fail to eliminate a terrorist threat, it's up to you and Sam Fisher to step in with the espionage. Without a huge arsenal of fire arms and explosives, your greatest weapons are the very shadows that the terrorists use to hide behind--but lucky for you, Sam's better equipped to exploit the darkness. It's understandable if you're not as well equipped, mentally, to tackle these large environments with little more than the absence of light on your side. But with a little direction from your pals at IGN Guides, you're sure to quickly become a trained killer, mercilessly using stealth to your advantage in order to take down the terrorist threat that no army could stop. Turn the lights down low, and peruse our Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow guide for:
Specific details on what it means to be a soldier of stealth. Learn how to trick your enemies and avoid all alarms.
Weapons and Gadgets:
Tips on using all those crazy do-dads that Fisher carries with him, including some secret uses you don't know about.
Full walkthrough--get through the game without sounding any alarms. Literally hundreds of screen shots to help find your way.
Multi Player:
Tips and tricks on how to best your online foes.
Secrets and tricks we've found to help you, online and off.
This wiki was automatically converted from the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Guide (Xbox) guide at https://guides.ign.com/guides/552407/ and may require cleanup. Please help improve this wiki if you can, and remove this notice if appropriate.
Contributor Assistance
If you're unfamiliar with editing our wikis, this simple How-to Wiki guide shows you how to get started. If you are unsure about something, do not hesitate to ask the staff or flag the page you are having trouble with (please don't forget to tell us about the problem or reason).- Introduction
- Why You Were Spotted
- Weapons and Gadgets
- Dili, Timor: Part One
- Multi Player Basics
- How do I get by dogs?
- Single Player
- Dili, Timor: Part Two
- Multi Player Levels
- Paris, France: Part One
- Paris, France: Part Two
- Paris-Nice, France: Part One
- Guides Air Prize
- Jerusalem, Israel: Part One
- Jerusalem, Israel: Part Two
- Jerusalem, Israel: Part Three
- Kudang Camp, Indonesia: Part One
- Kudang Camp, Indonesia: Part Two
- Komodo, Indonesia: Part One
- Komodo, Indonesia: Part Two
- Jakarta, Indonesia: Part One
- Jakarta, Indonesia: Part Two
- Los Angeles, USA: Part One
- Los Angeles, USA: Part Two
- Kudang Camp, Indonesia: Part Three


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The Gospel & Separation: A Series by Dr. Dave Doran
Dear Guests of IDOTG:
I am reading a new multi-part on line series by *Dr. Dave Doran. It is titled The Gospel and Separation and appears at Dr. Doran's personal blog, Glory & Grace. The series is prefaced by two introductory articles, but begins in earnest with The Gospel and Separation I and to date has four installments.
The following four excerpts from Part 3 are IMO of particular interest.
"Preaching the gospel also means announcing His exaltation, Lordship, and coming Kingdom (Acts 2:36; 2 Cor 4:5; Acts 8:12; cf. 14:22)."There are several portions I highlighted for consideration, but there is one I would like to focus on for this article, which is: "final salvation, through Him?" What is "final salvation?" It has a man-made ring to it, which I first read in John Piper's What Jesus Demands From the World, (p. 160).
"Gospel preaching offers the promise of final salvation through Him (Acts 13:38-39; cf. 1 Ths 1:10 'to wait for His Son from heaven…who rescues us from the wrath to come')."
"Any doctrinal threat to the person and work of Jesus Christ cuts at the heart of biblical Christianity. Because it attacks a fundamental of the faith, the gospel is at stake. Paul warned about people who might preach 'another Jesus' than the one that Paul had preached (2 Cor 11:4). The only Jesus who saves is the one revealed to us in the Scriptures. Any so-called gospel that rejects or distorts what the Scriptures teach about Jesus Christ is no gospel at all."
"This means there is no 'gospel lite'—either you have the biblical gospel in its fullness or you don't have the gospel at all."
"There is no doubt that Jesus saw a measure of real, lived-out obedience to the will of God as necessary for final salvation."Is this the "final salvation" Dr. Doran speaks of; "...lived-out obedience to the will of God?" Could that be the ground Dr. Doran is staking out as the Gospel, the saving message? What is UNfinal about salvation, receiving the gift of eternal life, once a man is born again by grace through faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8-9)?
One would expect the genuine believer in Christ to "grow in the grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Lord Jesus Christ," (2 Peter 3:18). What, however, is left for him to do for "final salvation?" It is my hope and prayer that as his series continues Dr. Doran will clarify his meaning and repudiate the works based salvation such as Piper articulates above. I hope he will stake out the biblical high-ground for the Gospel of grace.
If, on the other hand, Brother Doran is going to drive a stake in the ground for the Lordship Salvation interpretation of the Gospel, then by all means I trust he won't be vague about it. If he is going to make acceptance of the Lordship gospel the test for fellowship, I trust he won't begin by making the mistake of equating the reductionist Crossless Gospel heresy of Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin and GES as the view of every non-Lordship Salvation person. Separation from the GES men has long since taken place.
If Dave Doran believes Lordship Salvation is the Gospel, then in his series I am hopeful he will say so in unvarnished terms. If he believes submission to the Lordship of Christ is necessary for the reception of the gift of eternal life then may he say so. If Doran, like Piper, considers "…real, lived-out obedience to the will of God as necessary for final salvation," then I am hopeful he will say so in such a way there is no mistake about it or repudiate Piper's statement.IMO, the true crux of the Gospel controversy in the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) community is over the requirement to become a Christian, i.e. how to be born again, much more so than what should be the natural result of a genuine conversion.
"The message of faith only and the message of faith plus commitment of life cannot both be the gospel; therefore, one of them is a false gospel and comes under the curse of perverting the gospel or preaching another gospel (Gal. 1:6-9), and this is a very serious matter." (Dr. Charles Ryrie: Balancing the Christian Life, p. 170.)If we come to find Dave Doran believes Lordship Salvation is the Gospel will he call for "separation" from Independent Fundamental Baptists who reject the Lordship interpretation of the Gospel?
It is no secret that among the Calvinists in IFB circles there is a growing affinity for closing ranks with the so-called "conservative" evangelicalism- its stars and fellowships. IFB men who are Calvinistic in their theology have increasingly moved toward and are embracing the "conservative" evangelicals. They are primarily rallying around a common bond, which is Calvinism and Lordship Salvation. Is it possible Dave Doran's series signals the time has come when Reformed IFB men will make the leap; separate from IFB men who reject Calvinistic soteriology and/or Lordship Salvation and fully embrace the "conservative" evangelicals?
Brother Doran's series The Gospel & Separation is not yet complete. We will continue to read the series with great interest to see how he defines his terms makes the application and what impact, if any, the series will have on the IFB community.
*David M. Doran, D.Min. is Senior Pastor of Inter-City Baptist Church; President, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary; Professor of Pastoral Theology.
In the thread below one guest remarked, "I do think a direct question to Dr. Doran would result in a clarification." My reply follows.
That would be the ideal, but Dr. Doran does not allow for questions or comments at his blog where his series appears. Yesterday, however, Dr. Doran posted a new article at his blog. It is his reaction to the legitimate questions he has read here raised by myself and select others.
When we are going to discuss the Gospel we need to be biblically precise in our terms. I am gratified Dr. Doran has felt the need to apply more biblical precision to some of his statements from Part 3 of his series, which I quote…above. Later I will have some reaction, most likely in a new main page article, to the clarifying article by Dr. Doran.
Please continue to- The Gospel & Separation: Interim Discussion and Primer for the Balance


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"TripAdvisor for Business, a new division of TripAdvisor, is a pioneer offering hospitality businesses the opportunity to target the world's largest travel community with best-in-class marketing services. As part of TripAdvisor for Business, Holiday Lettings will add to our momentum and keep us at the forefront of innovation in the travel industry," said Christine Petersen, president of TripAdvisor for Business. "This exciting acquisition will expand our services for home owners and property management companies in the vibrant European marketplace and build on the strength that FlipKey has established in the U.S. market."
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About TripAdvisor® Media Group
TripAdvisor® Media Group, operated by TripAdvisor, LLC, attracts nearly 46 million monthly visitors* (across 17 popular travel brands, TripAdvisor®, www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.familyvacationcritic.com, www.flipkey.com, www.frequentflier.com, www.holidaylettings.co.uk, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.independenttraveler.com, www.onetime.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.travel-library.com, www.travelpod.com, www.virtualtourist.com and www.kuxun.cn). TripAdvisor-branded sites alone make up the most popular and largest travel community in the world, with more than 35 million unique monthly visitors*, 15 million members, and 35 million reviews and opinions. Featuring real advice from real travelers, TripAdvisor-branded sites cover more than one million destinations, hotels, restaurants and attractions and operate in the U.S. (http://www.tripadvisor.com/), the U.K. (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/), Ireland (http://www.tripadvisor.ie/), France (http://www.tripadvisor.fr/), Germany (http://www.tripadvisor.de/), Italy (http://www.tripadvisor.it/), Spain (http://www.tripadvisor.es/), India (http://www.tripadvisor.in/), Japan (http://www.tripadvisor.jp/), Portugal and Brazil (http://www.tripadvisor.com.br/), Sweden (http://www.tripadvisor.se/), The Netherlands (http://nl.tripadvisor.com/), Canada (http://www.tripadvisor.ca/), Denmark (http://www.tripadvisor.dk/), Turkey (http://www.tripadvisor.com.tr/), Mexico (http://www.tripadvisor.com.mx/), Norway (http://no.tripadvisor.com/), Poland (http://pl.tripadvisor.com/) and Australia (http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/). TripAdvisor also operates in China under the brand daodao.com (http://www.daodao.com/). TripAdvisor® Media Network provides travel suppliers with graphical advertising opportunities and a cost-per-click marketing platform. Collectively, the sites comprising the TripAdvisor Media Network have won hundreds of awards and accolades from press and industry, worldwide. TripAdvisor and the sites comprising the TripAdvisor Media Network are operating companies of Expedia, Inc.
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There are many things that one may consider to be 'Peace'.
In this challenge you will be thinking of the word,peaceful.
Peaceful today is rarely applied to persons; it refers to situations, scenes, and activities free of disturbances or, occasionally, of warfare -- Dictionary.com
General Idea:
Create a piece of work that expresses this.
♦ Whether it's your own views/opinion or the view of a character's.
(Yourself. Published character. Your own character... )
Preferably your own character if you choose one. I'd certainly love to see your character's opinion.
Don't forget! YOU MUST INCLUDE THE CHARACTER!
This doesn't mean that you have create a background.
Incorporate elements of your peaceful outlook, if it's going to be a picture of an individual. Maybe interacting with it?
Though. I would hope you'll be able to even make the tiniest impression of a background. It would be great practice?
- Follow theOtaku rules!
- It doesn't need to be colored. (I hope it would be)
- Traditional. Digital. Your choice!
- A new creation. Don't use already posted work.
- Nothing over PG-13 : Keep it clean!
- No Nudity
- Keep it clean!
- Have all the fun in the world!
Be creative!
Please ask questions!
... Let me know if something doesn't make sense.
You have THREE months! I'm hoping for results!
Dedicate all entries to me!
*Oh. Hey, to those blokes I invited.... thanks... for clicking. I took someone's suggestion and just invited people. To see what would happen...


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There was no shortage of good reasons for President Obama to cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, but most of the attention went to Russia granting asylum to the American fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden a few days earlier. The coverage reflects the short attention span and limited interest in Russia in the Western press, but it may also be accurate. After all, the list of ways Putin has worked against American and European interests was quite long already, with Syria, Iran, and missile defense on top, but previously Obama had been content to sit down across from Putin and spout the usual blather about cooperation and friendship. Nor has the U.S. administration paid much mind to Putin's increasingly brutal and widespread crackdown against human rights and civil society.
If it took a personal jab over the inconsequential figure of Snowden to at last rouse Obama to begin stand up to Putin, then doing the right thing for the wrong reason is better than nothing at all. As recommended by U.S. Senator John McCain on a Sunday television appearance, Obama should now put some real pressure on Putin by aggressively expanding the Magnitsky Act legislation that sanctions Russian officials and others who commit crimes under Putin's protection. Properly implemented and expanded to Europe, where so many of Putin's cronies enjoy spending their time and money, such legislation could truly shake Putin's power structure.
There is a parallel to be found in the recent outburst of international condemnation of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games scheduled to be held in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi next February. The numerous protests, both online and in crowds in the U.S., Europe, Australia and elsewhere, are in response to the harsh anti-gay law passed in my country in June, a law with broad and open-ended powers to punish and discriminate against gays and anyone who would defend or even talk publicly about homosexuality. Its passage was of a piece with the constant encroachment on free speech and other constitutional rights in Putin's Russia, and also in keeping with the Kremlin's politically convenient, and quite unholy, alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church.
This "homosexual propaganda" law is only the broadest and most recent of many similar ones in a Russia where gays are the routine victims of both official and unofficial discrimination, harassment, and violence. That Russia is a signatory to various European and international conventions that forbid this sort of discrimination has been largely ignored by the EU and its so-called leadership. So it is very welcome to see artists, activists, and regular citizens stepping into the gap to stand up for Russian human rights, which of course are what gay rights are a subset of. Figures as diverse as Tilda Swinton, Lady Gaga, and Stephen Fry have made public statements, including Fry's eloquent letter to the International Olympic Committee and Prime Minister David Cameron to propose moving or boycotting the Sochi Games.
There were already many reasons Sochi should never have been awarded the Olympics. That it is a sub-tropical summer resort with weather rarely nearing the freezing point is the most obvious. That Sochi was entirely without the required facilities when the Games were awarded on July 4, 2007, over Salzburg and Pyeongchang, added to the surprise. It was clear from the start it would be a human and environmental catastrophe for the delicate region. Sochi also borders the North Caucasus, a hotbed of both Islamicist terror and Russian military brutality, infamous for terror attacks in Ingushetia and regular bombings in Dagestan and for the horrific Chechen wars of the last decades.
The Kremlin invested more than money into the Sochi project during the brief 2008 war with Georgia when it annexed the territories of Abkhazia and North Ossetia by force of arms. Sochi lies 30 miles from Russian-occupied Abkhazia—still Georgian territory, by the way—an opportune way to secure a weak flank and to supply the massive Olympic construction effort. The athletes' Olympic Village is located just five miles from the Abkhazia border and is built next to an ancient cemetery for good measure. Many Sochi citizens have had their homes and businesses destroyed and the surrounding area has been turned into an ecological disaster zone that will only worsen once the area is abandoned a few minutes after the Olympic torch is extinguished.
The Putin regime is and always has been about one thing: money. Specifically, about how to move it into the bank accounts of Putin's allies. I long ago described our government as a perverse combination of Adam Smith and Karl Marx in which the costs are nationalized and the profits are privatized. Hosting the Olympic Games, a first for Russia, as the 1980 Games in Moscow was in the USSR, is a perfect way to shift tens of billions of dollars from the treasury and state-owned banks into private hands. Everything from infrastructure to venues and hotels to catering is being done by companies hand-picked by the regime and it's no surprise to find the names of many of Putin's closest pals "going for the gold" a bit early in Sochi. The price tag has soared far beyond the promised $12 billion to an estimated $50 billion, more costly even than the lavish 2008 Beijing Summer Games. According to The Economist, the companies of Putin's old judo buddy Arkady Rotenburg alone have received $7.4 billion in contracts. The entire 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympiad cost $6 billion.
Hosting the Games in Sochi would be a dubious effort even if the classic old resort town were being turned into Xanadu with Putin as Kubla Khan. But due to epic levels of corruption, most of the money will never even make it to Sochi. The construction that is being done is shoddy and many of the ambitious projects aren't scheduled to be built until after the Games. That is, they will never be built at all. It is fair to say that Switzerland will win the most gold from Sochi regardless of the success of their team.
The IOC members must possess tremendous faith to entrust the Games to Sochi in the face of such obstacles! Many of my colleagues in the opposition and I protested the bid from the start. When the degree of the chaos and corruption became evident, we petitioned the IOC to move the Games before it was too late. It is now impossible for such a relocation to happen, but this does not mean it is time to give up the fight. In fact, this new wave of Sochi protests over the anti-gay law illustrates that this is a perfect opportunity to turn Putin's dreamt-of showcase into a spotlight that exposes his cruel regime on a global stage.
As a lifelong professional sportsman, first for the Soviet Union and then for Russia, I cannot endorse a boycott of Sochi by the Olympic teams. Such maneuvers unfairly punish athletes with no regard for their personal views. I was nearly a victim of "sports politics" myself more than once as a young man. In 1983, I was told I could not travel to Pasadena, California, to play a world championship candidates match against Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi. The Soviet Sports Committee was already planning to boycott the 1984 Summer Games in nearby Los Angeles in retaliation for the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow. I was initially forfeited for failing to appear and I was fortunate that eventually the match was relocated to London, where I won and continued my ascent to winning the crown in 1985. It is impossible to know what might have happened to my career had the forfeit stood and had I been forced to wait another three years to challenge Karpov.
I believe strongly in the power of sport to break down barriers and to cross borders. The athletes will go to Sochi and I wish them all the best. May they break many records and provide joy to sports fans around the world. The focus should be on sport and the athletes, first and foremost. But sport is part of culture, of life, and there is an opportunity for the athletes and visiting fans and media to have a real impact on human rights in Russia. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and several Duma members have reiterated in recent days that despite the IOC's confused assurances, the "homosexual propaganda" law stands and Sochi athletes will "face consequences" if they violate it. I seriously doubt, however, that the militarized police forces in Sochi will dare to harass any foreign guests with the world watching.
Everyone remembers the "Black Power" salutes raised by American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the medal podium in Mexico City in 1968. Sochi will be ripe for similar gestures. So I hope the visitors will wave rainbow flags and speak in favor of free speech and against hatred and bigotry. The television networks should discuss the law and what it means to be gay in Putin's Russia. Sponsors should include LGBT individuals and human-rights themes in their Olympic advertisements. Of course the decision to act is up to each individual, but in the West, unlike in Russia, politicians and sponsors still listen to the people!
The Sochi boycott that is required is a boycott by world leaders, by celebrities and sponsors, by CEOs and fans. Do not come to Sochi to sit next to Putin in his stately pleasure dome, pretending it is a world apart from the police state he has created. Let the stadiums sit vacant, especially the VIP sections Putin hopes to fill with presidents and prime ministers. As Stephen Fry's letter pointed out, the world's embrace of the 1936 Berlin Games gave Adolf Hitler a huge boost of confidence. (It is politically incorrect to speak of today, but the entire French Olympic team raised their arms in a stiff Nazi salute as they passed by the führer during the opening ceremony.) By 1936, Hitler's government had spent years persecuting Germany's Jews. The Nazis also attacked homosexuals, the handicapped, gypsies, and political opponents, a model of oppressing the most vulnerable that Putin is following by going after immigrants, gays, and the opposition. Giving dictators what they want in the hopes of getting on their good side always fails. It drags you down to their level and makes you an accomplice to their crimes.
Putin seeks similar adulation in Sochi and he must not receive it. Let him fill the seats at his side with the oligarchs and flunkies he pays so well and not the leaders of the free world. Shun him and shame him for his bigotry and cruelty. Politicians must not be allowed to use the athletes as shields for their own cowardice. The world will be watching.


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This morning I received a tweet about WD Red drives not supporting Time Limited Error Recovery. TLER is the feature which allows a RAID comprised of Reds to much more gracefully handle drive failures and/or read errors. It's carried down from enterprise drives like the RE4 and RE4-GP.
I'm posting this quick note here to let the masses know that the Red drives *do* in fact support TLER. It's a primary component of NASware – the NAS aware firmware that drives the Reds. Here's the official reply I received from Western Digital:
WD does enable intelligent error recovery controls, which is not the same as a desktop drive. WD's exclusive NASware technology is built in each WD Red drive, which reduces the concern with using desktop drives in a RAID environment.
More info on details of NASware can be found here: http://www.wd.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810
Western Digital has assured me they are tracking down where the miscommunication occurred.


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<<Previous Question | Question Index | Subject Index | Constitutional Index | Next Question>>
Q137. "I recently had a debate with a friend of mine. The question was what is required to repeal an Amendment to the Constitution. I told him I thought it would take two-thirds approval of the House and Senate, the President's signature and three-fourths approval of the states. Was I right?"
A. The repeal of any part of the Constitution requires an amendment to the Constitution — this includes the repeal of a previously passed amendment. So, the process is well defined in the Constitution, and is detailed on the Amendment Page. In reading that page, you can see that you were almost right — the biggest mistake you made is that the President is not involved in the amendment process in any way.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Show All Answers
Obtain the appropriate paperwork from the Ellis County Clerk's office at 718 Main, or download from www.ellisco.net under Department/Clerk. Return completed paperwork to the Ellis County Clerk along with a $55.00 fee. Once the County Commissioners have approved the permit, it will be forwarded onto the applicant.
To obtain a Moving Permit to move a building/structure, derrick, etc. on Ellis County roads, pick up the application at the Ellis County Clerk's office at 718 Main or visit ellisco.net under Department/Clerk to download. All utilities that are affected by the move will need to be notified by the mover. Present the permit to the Ellis County Clerk's office along with a $100 fee after meeting the requirements of notification. The County Clerk's office will then forward the request to Ellis County Public Works Road & Bridge Division for approval of the route. They will notify the Ellis County Clerk once they have authorized approval of the route. The Ellis County Clerk will then sign and seal the permit and forward onto the contractor/mover, who may then proceed with the move.
To apply for a passport, you can get the paperwork from the Ellis County Clerk's office at 718 Main, or you may go online to download the proper application @ travel.state.gov. If this is your first-time passport, it must be filed at the Ellis County Clerk's Office or another official passport agency. If you are renewing your passport and are an adult, you file it yourself. Please call the Ellis County Clerk's office for any questions at 785-628-9410.


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Theatre of Night
There are many wonderful slot games based on various themes but very few that are based on forests and Theatre of Night is one such game. This mobile slot game is played using five reels and ten paylines that are fixed. Here you can bet between minimum £0.25 and a maximum of £250 per spin. The slot is set in the backdrop of enchanted woods with colorful flowers, huge trees, narrow water stream flowing between them and stunning fireflies that glow brightly in the darkness of the midnight. There is a soothing background music of jungle beat that constantly keeps playing along with the game.
About the developer of Theatre of Night
This amazing mobile slot game was developed by none other than (NYX) Next Gen who is famous for creating such graphically stunning slots that you can play on mobile phones, desktop and tablet devices.
About the game
This beautiful scenic mobile slot game is played with three top paying symbols of a bird with sparkle around it, a pink flower and a glowing colorful butterfly. The bird takes the top position when it comes to paying the most with 400 times the stake on five symbol wins across the middle row. There are four lower value symbols that look like precious gems but in shapes of club, diamond, heart and spade of playing cards. These symbols appear more frequently and look very attractive on the reels. There is one special bonus symbol in this game and that is a gold frame with ornaments on it.
- Bonus Wild: The golden frame with ornaments is the wild symbol of this mobile slot and it appears only on reels three, two and one during the base game but extends even to reels one and five during free spins. Wild here substitutes for all the symbols of the game and since there are no other bonus symbols, there is no exception.
- Firefly Free Spins: This feature is triggered when three wild appears during a spin and offers six free spins. During the free spins reel, three becomes stacked wild and stays that way until the end of all free games that makes huge wins for you. Re-triggering of free spins does not happen in this game.
With magical visuals and wonderful symbols, this mobile slot game offers huge stakes of wins during free games because a lot of wild features get triggered at that time. This is one of the most popular games lately and something you should not miss.


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Goldmark: Selective, and green, shopping can boost the economy
The conventional picture of Americans shopping is of a large, mindless, army of consumers tramping through malls and big-box stores, acquiring things in huge volumes -- a horde of locusts munching their way through a field of grain. Not a pretty picture.
But the consumer attitudes and behavior that image caricatures may be changing. If the business of America is business, then consumer spending, which makes up about 70 percent of our economic activity, is central to our economic health. We need to pay attention to what happens in that sector.
And recent trends appear to be good news.
A 2011 book titled "Spend Shift," by advertising executive John Gerzema and former Newsday journalist Michael D'Antonio, reports on consumer behavior and attitudes over several decades. A lot of the changes they report are encouraging. Among them:
People are shopping more carefully, buying less and focusing more on what they need, less on what they want.
Young adults are more comfortable than any other group in "reordering priorities and adapting," whether we're talking about shopping, living style or career choices.
Millennials -- the generation born between 1980 and 1998 -- "want to learn more skills, take responsibility for their own well-being, and tackle problems and projects on their own." This makes them more independent and discerning as consumers, and more engaged as citizens.
Consumers have developed a sense that they can "align their values with their spending" and "force capitalism to not be just about more but about better."
The shifts in attitudes observed over just the past few years suggest that consumers, particularly younger ones, are paying more attention to how and where the things they're buying are made and the values of the companies that are selling to them. If they know that the company selling a desk chopped down a rain forest to make it, they won't buy it. The data behind these attitudes suggest they are linked to a generational change as a new group of consumers comes of age, and as such were under way before the financial earthquake of 2008-2009.
A good reality check for these observations is to look at the reactions of the high priests of mass consumption in the United States: Wal-Mart Stores. The world's largest retailer has embarked on an intensive effort to make sure that what it sells is produced in environmentally and socially responsible ways. For example, the chain has told suppliers they will be dropped unless they reduce their carbon emissions and use energy more efficiently. My suspicion is that Wal-Mart executives didn't wake up one morning with a sudden concern for global warming, endangered species or tropical forests. My bet is they have been studying consumer attitudes and figured they were going to lose customers unless they shaped up.
These broad consumer trends may help at the margin to redress several imbalances that had become excessive. In the United States, manufacturing has declined; cheaper production overseas has made some American businesses uncompetitive. The shift toward buying less and using it more efficiently helps in part to compensate for some of that lost economic activity; rather than continuing to buy more things made overseas, the new generation buys less and repairs and services what it buys here, which keeps some money in our economy. And when Americans started saving more and charging less on their credit cards after the recent financial crisis, that also strengthened the American economy.
Wal-Mart's effort to clean up its act environmentally requires them to focus on China, where the majority of its suppliers are. Talk about odd couples: Wal-Mart and the Chinese government are working together, because there is no place in the world that more desperately needs less pollution and more conservation of clean water than China. If China, Wal-Mart and young consumers are all singing the same song, that's a tune that's here to stay.
Peter Goldmark, a former budget director of New York State and former publisher of the International Herald Tribune, headed the climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Updated 21 minutes ago Male, female body parts found ... Romeo Santos at UBS ... Fire truck crashes into building ... Feed Me: Pizza Crumb


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The Judds reunite for Las Vegas residency
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Mother-daughter country duo The Judds are reuniting after nearly five years to perform a series of shows in Las Vegas.
AEG Live and The Venetian casino announced on Monday that Naomi Judd and her daughter Wynonna will perform nine shows Oct. 7 through Oct. 24 at The Venetian Theatre.
The Kentucky-born singers released their last album, "Love Can Build a Bridge," 25 years ago and Naomi retired in the early 1990s due to hepatitis, but Wynonna continued on as a solo artist.
They have five Grammy awards and have sold more than 20 million albums between them. Their hits include "Mama, He's Crazy," ''Why Not Me," and "Girls Night Out."


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Zuora's founder and CEO Tien Tzuo had a vision of a subscription economy long before most people ever considered the notion. He knew that for companies to succeed with subscriptions, they needed a bookkeeping system that understood how they collected and reported money. The company went public yesterday, another clear sign post on the road to SaaS maturation.
Tzuo was an early employee at Salesforce and their first CMO. He worked there in the early days in the late 90s when Salesforce's Marc Benioff famously rented an apartment to launch the company. Tzuo was at Salesforce 9 years, and it helped him understand the nature of subscription-based businesses like Salesforce.
"We created a great environment for building, marketing and delivering software. We rewrote the rules, the way it was built, marketed and sold," Tzuo told me in an interview in 2016.
He saw a fundamental problem with traditional accounting methods, which were designed for selling a widget and declaring the revenue. A subscription was an entirely different model and it required a new way to track revenue and communicate with customers. Tzuo took the long view when he started his company in early 2007, leaving a secure job at a growing company like Salesforce.
He did it because he had the vision, long before anyone else, that SaaS companies would require a subscription bookkeeping system, but before long, so would other unrelated businesses.
Building a subscription system
As he put it in that 2016 interview, if you commit to pay me $1 for 10 years, you know that $1 was coming in come hell or high water, that's $10 I know I'm getting, but I can't declare the money until I get it. That recurring revenue still has value though because my investors know that I'm secure for 10 years, even though it's not on the books yet. That's where Zuora came in. It could account for that recurring revenue when nobody else could. What's more, it could track the billing over time, and send out reminders, help the companies stay engaged with their customers.
As Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research put it, they pioneered the whole idea of a subscription economy, and not just for SaaS companies. Over the last several years, we've heard companies talking about selling services and SLAs (service/uptime agreements) instead of a one-time sale of an item, but not that long ago it wasn't something a lot of companies were thinking about.
"They pioneered how companies can think about monetization," Wang said. "So large companies like a GE could go from selling a wind turbine one time to selling a subscription to deliver a certain number of Kw/hr of green energy at peak hours from 1 to 5 pm with 98 percent uptime." There wasn't any way to do this before Zuora came along.
Jason Lemkin, founder at SaaStr, a firm that invests in SaaS startups, says Tzuo was a genuine visionary and helped create the underlying system for SaaS subscriptions to work. "The most interesting part of Zuora is that it is a "second" order SaaS play. It could only thrive once SaaS became mainstream, and could only scale on top of other recurring revenue businesses. Zuora started off as a niche player helping SaaS companies do billing, and it dramatically expanded and thrived as SaaS became … Software."
Market catches up with idea
When he launched the company in 2007, perhaps he saw that extension of his idea out on the distant horizon. He certainly saw companies like Salesforce needing a service like the one he had decided to create. The early investors must have recognized that his vision was early and it would take a slow, steady climb on the way to exiting. It took 11 years and $242 million in venture capital before they saw the payoff. The revenue after 11 years was a reported $167 million. There is plenty of room to grow.
But yesterday the company had its initial public offering, and it was by any measure a huge success. According TechCrunch's Katie Roof, "After pricing its IPO at $14 and raising $154 million, the company closed at $20, valuing the company around $2 billion." Today it was up a bit more as of this writing.
When you consider the Tzuo's former company has become a $10 billion company, that companies like Box, Zendesk, Workday and Dropbox have all gone public, and others like DocuSign and Smartsheet are not far behind, it's pretty clear that we are in a golden age of SaaS — and chances are it's only going to get better.


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I really love this desktop audio set. It's truly great. I often use them to listen to music while playing fnaf 2 which is a great game
Review: Audioengine P4
Audioengine is the darling of the desktop audio set, producing mostly small, affordable powered speakers that tend to be used on desks and credenzas. The P4 is the company's sole passive speaker, with a 0.75-inch silk-dome tweeter, a 4-inch Kevlar-cone woofer, and a front-slotted cabinet. At 9 inches high, it's the second most compact model in this roundup. The handsome version you see here, crafted from solid bamboo (the world's most renewable wood) costs an extra $75 per pair.
It quickly became evident that the freestanding setup for this test, with the speakers a couple of feet from the wall and robbed of the bass reinforcement they'd get from a nearby physical boundary, wasn't the best milieu for the P4, although it's advertised for use in home theaters and bedroom systems. "This would be good for lighter pop music," Lauren said, "because it really brings out the vocals, especially female vocals. But it needs more in the bottom end." While it wasn't practical for me to do a whole different setup for one speaker, I gave the P4 a spin on a desktop, where it would get a bit of bass reinforcement. There, straddling my laptop computer, the P4 sounded somewhat fuller, but the balance still seemed thin.
The upside of the P4 is its spatiality, which is a pretty tough trick for a desktop speaker to pull off. Greg and I both agreed that the P4's portrayal of ambience was fairly spectacular, although it seemed somewhat exaggerated compared with some of the other minis. It's also got a vivid sound, bringing the midrange to the fore and emphasizing voices. But none of us — even Geoff, who's an enthusiastic user of Audioengine's powered desktop speakers —would call the sound refined.
The P4 is certainly compact and affordable, both traits that serve it well for desktop use. But we'd prefer Audioengine's powered systems for our offices, and some of the other speakers tested here for our living rooms.
Frequency response of the P4 measures 77 Hz to 20 kHz ±5.9 dB on-axis, ±5.8 dB avg 0°-30°. the curve shows an emphasis on frequencies between 1 and 7 kHz, which are +3 to +5 dB above the rest of the audio band. Measured impedance is 3.6 ohms minimum, 5 ohms average. Sensitivity from 300 Hz to 10 kHz averages 88.2 dB.


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"Rain is the single most important factor to control in order to construct a durable structure."
Drainage planes (also referred to as "water resistive barrier" or WRB) are water repellent materials (building paper, house wrap, sheet or trowel applied membranes, foam insulation, coated structural sheathing , etc) that are located behind the cladding and interconnected with flashings, window and door openings, or other penetrations of the building enclosure in such a way as to drain water that passes through the cladding back out to the exterior.
Drainage Plane
Gravity is the driving force in drainage plane function. Gravity is very reliable. Water management techniques that ignore or try to counteract gravity—reverse lapped flashings for example—are bound to fail.
In order for a drainage plane to be effective it must be continuous in the field of the water repellent material and integrated with flashings and to the water management strategies of other enclosure assemblies (such as roofs, foundations, and windows).
The continuity of the drainage plane is maintained in two ways: 1) through shingle lapping of the materials 2) taping or sealing of material joints in a barrier approach.
Drainage Space
In order for drainage to occur, a drainage space must be provided between the cladding and the drainage plane. The width of this space varies depending on cladding type and function.
Effective drainage of rainwater can occur in drainage spaces as small as 1/16 to 1/8 inch (2 or 3 mm) (e.g. between two layers of building paper in a stucco cladding). Sometimes the drainage space is also called upon to act as a "ventilation space." Effective ventilation may require spaces as large as 3/4 to 1 inch (20 to 25 mm) depending on the moisture load.
For some cladding systems, e.g. aluminum or vinyl siding, this drainage space is inherent to the cladding system. Similarly brick and masonry veneers have an inherent space, however care must be taken during construction to keep the space clear of mortar so that drainage is not impeded. Products are also available (such as three dimensional plastic mesh products) that help to maintain a clear drainage space.
Wood lap siding has traditionally been installed tight to building paper drainage plane. This creates an intermittent drainage space and is largely dependant on the profile of the siding. This type of installation works well for most instances, however it often reduces the service life of the siding material and has been attributed to some building failures. Ideally wood siding and cementitious lap siding should be installed over vertical wood furring or a plastic spacer mesh to create a vented and drained space behind the cladding.
In stucco cladding, two layers of building paper can provide adequate drainage space. The outer layer of builder paper acts as a bond break between the stucco rendering and the inner layer of building paper. With building paper, the moisture in the stucco causes the paper to swell slightly and wrinkle during application of the stucco. Over time the paper dries leaving small drainage channels between the two layers of building paper. Improved performance can be achieved through the use of a plastic drainage mesh with a filter fabric (usually adhered to one side of the mesh) installed between the stucco renderings and the drainage mesh. This creates a larger and more effective drainage space for the system.
The principle of drainage applies to the design and construction of window and door components in the same way that it applies to walls and openings. Window and door openings should be drained to the exterior using the same principles used in the design and construction of wall assemblies in general. Consult the references listed below or Information Sheet 302: Pan Flashing for Exterior Wall Openings for more on this topic.
Drainage Plane/Water Resistive Barrier Details
Figure 1
Fundamental Rain Water Control
- Drain the site – slope grade away from building
- Drain the ground – foundation perimeter drain
- Drain the building – roof system
- Drain the assembly – drainage plane and water management system
- Drain the opening – pan flashings
- Drain the component
- Drain the material
Figure 2
Shingle Lapped Assembly
Figure 3
Barrier Assembly
Photograph 1
Water Resistant Sheathing as Drainage Plane
- All joints and seams in sheathing sealed with compatible and durable tape
Photograph 2
Wood Furring Strip Drainage Space
- Furring strips fastened to framing through insulating sheathing.
- All openings top and bottom provided with screen to prevent insect entry
Photograph 3
Plastic Mesh Drainage Space
- All openings top and bottom provided with screen to prevent insect entry


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Today's Best Apps: PyroTouch HD Fireworks Game, Color Shining, Grand Prix Challenge And More
December 15, 2012
The App Store takes delivery of hundreds of new apps per day. The overwhelming scene makes it possible to easily overlook an exciting game, valuable productivity suite, etc. However, we have a solution. Today's Best Apps tackles this problem by providing you with a handpicked and tested list of apps that are truly worth your consideration each and everyday.


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